The essays in this volume attempt to redress a gap in the social history of the Arab East (Bilad ash-Sham) by suggesting an alternative reading of biographic and auto-biographic literature, with emphasis on subaltern biographies. It focuses on the lives of marginal and marginalized figures who played a critical role in the cultural life Eastern Mediterranean countries in the 19th and 20th centuries. It also addresses linkages, continuities, and ruptures in the social and cultural life of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan.